Crestline Soaring Society

Sunday 4 May 08. Very windy at Crestline. I helped a couple HG’s launch and that left only Randy and me. I waited till his back was turned and then I snuck up and asked him if he would help me launch before he could ask anything similar. This was a shameless and very much planned maneuver. (Rationalization: I’m an old man with one foot in the grave and he’s a vibrant young whippersnapper with his whole life ahead of him.) After he launched me I saw he had to wait the better part of an hour before someone came along and helped him get off the mountain. Thanks Randy. I owe you a six pack buddy.

A little too cold for the way I was dressed between 5000 and 7000, but not as bad down lower, and frankly too windy aloft to be all that much fun. Later in the day the lift was simply humiliating. Meg flew her falcon from Marshall and said it took an hour to get down. Gigantic columns of lift, sometimes as much as 1000+ fpm, over Marshall, Cloud, Regionals etc. The headwind above Marshall almost always matched my trim speed. I could park above the peak and watch the pilots set up. I never got to play around above the 750 as I like to do at the end because the lift would carry me out. The only place I found a gently buoyant glass off was a few hundred feet over the Eucalyptus trees that line the LZ.

From the air it looked like stiff, generally South West breezes where gusting in the LZ, suddenly changing direction 30 or more degrees without warning. I saw many landings with slight penetration and rapidly yawing wings near the ground so I knew what to expect, but at 6:00 it was very well behaved for me when I landed.

John W barbecued a passel of burgers in LZ for the grateful folks, but by the time I folded my glider the delicious aroma was all that remained.

Mike Z